Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3

[(Eco)nomy_404]

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

... The U is the most prominent research institution in the state of Utah - with USU a distant second. There is little competition, even with BYU 40 miles to the south, and I think that plays a huge role.

While I do not dispute the major roll the U has in the state, I do find this claim of it being #1 to be more of an opinion than fact. The U is renown for its medical programs, but BYU is also renown on Wall Street for its business and accounting programs. According to collegestats.org, BYU has the largest enrollment in the state at 34,000 students while the U trails it by 6,000. I would consider them rivals more than anything else. Even SLCC has more students than USU - not that that says much for SLCC, but I still would consider BYU much more on par with the U than USU. BYU`s influence is felt without a doubt in SLC - 40 miles is not that far. When I ride TRAX and Frontrunner, I see a lot of backpacks heading south to Provo.

http://collegestats.org/colleges/utah/largest

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

While I do not dispute the major roll the U has in the state, I do find this claim of it being #1 to be more of an opinion than fact. The U is renown for its medical programs, but BYU is also renown on Wall Street for its business and accounting programs. According to collegestats.org, BYU has the largest enrollment in the state at 34,000 students while the U trails it by 6,000. I would consider them rivals more than anything else. Even SLCC has more students than USU - not that that says much for SLCC, but I still would consider BYU much more on par with the U than USU. BYU`s influence is felt without a doubt in SLC - 40 miles is not that far. When I ride TRAX and Frontrunner, I see a lot of backpacks heading south to Provo.

http://collegestats.org/colleges/utah/largest

I was solely talking 'research' and not those other programs. I'm not comparing the entire University to BYU - just their research, which fuels a great deal of the construction we've seen on campus.

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

While I do not dispute the major roll the U has in the state, I do find this claim of it being #1 to be more of an opinion than fact. The U is renown for its medical programs, but BYU is also renown on Wall Street for its business and accounting programs. According to collegestats.org, BYU has the largest enrollment in the state at 34,000 students while the U trails it by 6,000. I would consider them rivals more than anything else. Even SLCC has more students than USU - not that that says much for SLCC, but I still would consider BYU much more on par with the U than USU. BYU`s influence is felt without a doubt in SLC - 40 miles is not that far. When I ride TRAX and Frontrunner, I see a lot of backpacks heading south to Provo.

http://collegestats.org/colleges/utah/largest

BYU and the U are comparable as undergraduate institutions, with the slight edge going to BYU in terms of test scores and enrollment. As far as graduate programs and research, the U is much larger.

There's a lot of change happening at the U. The number of undergrads is increasing steadily each year, and the total student population may soon be over 35,000. Currently it's at 32,388. Admissions requirements are rising as well: the university recently overhauled the admissions process and dealt away with the "admissions index" system. A school of dentistry is opening this year and new majors are constantly being created (the newest one is an Interdisciplinary Design major). There's construction everywhere and there's no end in sight. Exciting times.

[Future Mayor]

Originally Posted by Just A Thought

My feeling is that the D-1 zoning in downtown is unlikely to get much more development as whats left currently undeveloped is mostly owned by about 4 parties. And it would seem that they have come to some sort of agreement that its somehow more profitable to leave the land as is.

Its the curse of the convention center. West Temple, 200 S, 300 S, 200 W and 300 W all are in dire need of development in the D-1 area. I agree there are pockets that are nice, but its mostly parking lots and blight.

I suspect few people quite trust that these areas will ever be developed, so they won't invest themselves. Chicken and the egg I guess.

The other elephant in the room, is that many small business DO actively search for suitable downtown locations for retail/coffee etc. but there is nothing there. There are very few retail outlets suitable for small boutique stores that aren't in either of the malls.

I've said this before but there are a total of 11 retail/restaurant outlets on 300 south between main and 300 W. That roughly half a mile, (a mile if you count both sides of the street) right in the center of SLC! And 200 South is no better.

Very few walking destinations between Main/CC and Gateway. thats a problem if you want to create a so called 'walking downtown'.

And this, in my very humble opinion, is why downtown will never be what it could be.

Blight, weeds and parking lots are there to stay, until the city imposes punitive taxes on weeds and tarmac. (which it never will of course.. see first paragraph)

Sometimes it seems as if downtown Salt Lake is a developmental mobious strip.

Just my 2 cents.

This is the exact reason why the Convention Hotel needs to be built on the Post Office block. The Hotel will be a connector between Main St and The Depot District. It will also eliminate the "back" of the convention center on 200 S, by internalizing nearly all the back area functions around 200 W and 100 S.

As for 300 S, yes there is a low amount of retail opportunities on the street, but I don't share your whoa is us attitude that we are doomed to always have parking lots and weeds. The demand for downtown office, housing and retail is continuing to grow and as it does things will slowly be redeveloped. It's not going to happen overnight but it is going to happen. While it's not on a surface lot, the proposal on the NW corner of 400 S and W. Temple is a perfect example of that. It's an underutilized corner and someone sees the potential for a greater use.

I do agree though, the city needs to implement tougher penalties on vacant, non leasable buildings, such as the former Zephyr club, and require landscaping surrounding pay lots, or at the very least, weed removal and payment repair. While I don't love the parking lot north of Gracies, at least it's not a hideous eye sore like the Zephyr lot.

[TimeSaltlake]

I really like all the residential projects going up. Although the tallest is 6 floors off 600e 450 s ish. Its good to see this increase. I especially appreciate the how the west side in the gate way distric is increasing in density. I still remember the bowling place that was on north temple and 600w. Now there is City front(4 stories), Bridges(4flrs), the new plasma center(2 flrs), The newly completed senior housing(3floors). ...not to include the resideltial project going on next west of the gate way(5flrs). The resideltial building on 200s and 500w.The proposed hotels by the EA and the gateway itself with its structures. Things are good for the west side. .

[Makid]

Now, if only a small grocer would go in in the area. The 2nd South and 6th West area would be a great location for a grocer to go.

[SLC Projects]

I too like seeing all the new housing development going on not just on the west side, but all around downtown. I would like to see more of these housing developments to be taller then only 4-6 stories. I'm thinking around 8-12 stories would be great.

[Future Mayor]

I don't mind 4-6 stories in the East Downtown Neighborhood. I think they mix well with the older housing stock, from a few single story homes to the 3-4 story walk-ups that make up the character of East Downtown. I don't think I really want anything much taller east of 3rd E and north of 350 S, I like the density that is developing.

400 S on the other hand I have a totally different opinion on that. I would like to see 8-12 stories along 400 S as demand dictates redevelopment, and 10-15 directly adjacent to the trax stations (Library and Trolley Sq).

[DMTower]

Does anyone remember when the hotels south of ESA are to begin construction? I'm in that area every day but haven't seen any sign of movement at that site.

[ajiuO]

Tribune building lower face lift



State Street Project





Eat-A-Burger





Regent Street



Bike Station (They are popping up all over. I also noticed one at Harmons and the Galivon Center)



Other Stuff

[SLC Projects]

Thanks for the update. Is it me, or does it seem like it's taking crews forever getting that basement done on the State Street development.

[scottharding]

Nice update. So sad about the Bay Leaf closing down though. I really liked that place.

The updated Tribune building is going to bring a great presence to main street though.

[(Eco)nomy_404]

The latest state unemployment report is out, and we are in the spotlight!

"In February 2013, non-farm payroll employment increased in 42 states and decreased in 8 states and the District of Columbia. Utah had the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment (+1.4 percent). The largest over-the-year percentage increases occurred in North Dakota (+5.0 percent) and Utah (+4.1 percent)."

http://bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

At the height of the state`s employment boom in March 2007, only 2.5% of the total state workforce of 1,358,655 were out of work. From the record-low levels of 2007, unemployment soared to a recession high of 8.4% two and a half years later. By December 2009, the state had lost 104,388 jobs from early 2007. Since then, the state has been able to recover 41,597 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate down to 5.2%. That means we are still 62,791 jobs short of the 2007 peak.The state`s overall population has increased 10% over the same time period, so we are still about 70,000 jobs short of where we really would be today were we in the same economic situation as that of early 2007.

While the recovery has been long, hard, and slow, it really puts things into perspective when you realize our economy lost over 100,000 jobs to the Great Recession. Even so, we will need to pick up the pace if we want to see employment levels where they were in early 2007 any time soon. At the current pace over the past 3 years, it would take another 8 years to reach those levels. You could say, in terms of employment, we could very well experience a lost decade. The most encouraging thing about the report is that the rate of job growth is accelerating. If we keep up last year`s rate of 23,000 net jobs created, we would reach that level in just 3 more years. Either way, a 5-to-10-year recovery would still be faster than the 15 years it took us to recover from the Great Depression.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST49000003

Nationally, the unemployment rate peaked at 10% in 2010 and has now fallen to 7.6%. Roughly 9 million jobs were lost as a result of the recession. We have now recovered 5.8 million of those back as a country.

For those who are interested, we are tied with Hawaii for 8th lowest unemployment rate:

1) 3.3% - North Dakota
2) 3.8% - Nebraska
3) 4.4% - South Dakota, Vermont
5) 4.9% - Wyoming
6) 5.0% - Iowa, Oklahoma
8) 5.2% - Hawaii, Utah
10) 5.5% - Minnesota, Kansas

The worst state unemployment rate is a 3-way tie:

48) 9.6% - California, Nevada, Mississippi

[delts145]

Salt Lake City listed as one of only 14 cities with increased jobs

By Amberlee Lovell, Deseret News

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86557...-only-14-cities-with-increased-jobs.html

Even though jobs are increasing nationally, Salt Lake City is one of only 14 of the 100 largest cities that have more jobs now than pre-recession, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

All 14 of these metros benefited from a stable employment base during the recession, whether anchored by universities, government groups or high-tech hubs.

Texas has six of the cities: Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, McAllen, Dallas and Houston. Part of Texas’ great growth came from the surge in gas and oil employment. Percentage-wise, Austin added the most jobs.

The other cities besides Salt Lake City are Omaha, Neb.; Pittsburgh; San Jose, Calif.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Washington, D.C. and Charleston, S.C...

.

[Lilljemalm]

Some of this might belong on other threads, but I consider everything from Santaquin to North Ogden to be Salt Lake.
What do any of you know of the following developments?
1) in Orem, Midtown Village, Center Pointe Plaza and the Geneva Development
2) in the Brickyard area, Element 31
3) in South Jordan, SoDa Row
4) in South SLC, Meadowbrook Station and Market Station
5) in West Jordan, Bangeter Station
6) in WVC, Sage Gate/Haynes Landing
7) in Clearfield, Falcon Hill

[Future Mayor]

Originally Posted by Lilljemalm

Some of this might belong on other threads, but I consider everything from Santaquin to North Ogden to be Salt Lake.
What do any of you know of the following developments?
1) in Orem, Midtown Village, Center Pointe Plaza and the Geneva Development
2) in the Brickyard area, Element 31
3) in South Jordan, SoDa Row
4) in South SLC, Meadowbrook Station and Market Station
5) in West Jordan, Bangeter Station
6) in WVC, Sage Gate/Haynes Landing
7) in Clearfield, Falcon Hill

You're right those would all be on other threads. While you may consider everything between Santaquin and N. Ogden to be Salt Lake City. That would be much to large of an area for one thread.
1) Utah Valley Thread
2-6) Salt Lake MSA Thread
7) Ogden Thread

[(Eco)nomy_404]

Originally Posted by delts145

Salt Lake City listed as one of only 14 cities with increased jobs

By Amberlee Lovell, Deseret News

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86557...-only-14-cities-with-increased-jobs.html

Even though jobs are increasing nationally, Salt Lake City is one of only 14 of the 100 largest cities that have more jobs now than pre-recession, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

All 14 of these metros benefited from a stable employment base during the recession, whether anchored by universities, government groups or high-tech hubs.

Texas has six of the cities: Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, McAllen, Dallas and Houston. Part of Texas’ great growth came from the surge in gas and oil employment. Percentage-wise, Austin added the most jobs.

The other cities besides Salt Lake City are Omaha, Neb.; Pittsburgh; San Jose, Calif.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Washington, D.C. and Charleston, S.C...

.

I wonder what data they are looking at, and what time period they constitute as "pre-recession." According to the BLS, the last time 578,000 people were employed in the SLC metro (the latest Jan 2013 figure) was in Jan 2009. While employment levels are currently at 4-year highs, Jan 2009 was hardly "pre-recession." The recession is officially recognized to have started Dec 2007. The SLC metro area had 595,000 employed at the time with an unemployment rate of 2.5%. Today, there are 17,000 fewer people employed than were back then, or about -2.9% less. I think we are close to returning to those levels as a metro, but I find it still a little premature to say we are back to "pre-recession" levels. By this time next year, we very well could be.

I suppose if you went back to Oct 2006, we are at the same employment level today as then. Back then, however, the population was smaller and we only had a metro unemployment rate of 2.4%. Today, it`s 5.2%. We also continued to gain jobs for another year and a half after that, peaking at 595,385 in April 2008.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost

[DCRes]

A few skyline shots from on the top of the Whole Foods parking garage at Trolley Square

[T-Stan]

Nice photos. I think photos of Downtown SLC from the vantage point of Trolley Square really show the city well. It is my second favorite vantage point, second only to the view of the city from the S curve on 400 South

[ajiuO]

Originally Posted by DCRes

A few skyline shots from on the top of the Whole Foods parking garage at Trolley Square

• Video Link